The Buried Life
by Caela Illu
Summary: After Jowan, Uldred and the Blight, Neria Surana joins the Grey Wardens to find a reason to keep living. She meets Anders, who ignites in her a desire and longing so potent, she simply cannot bear it, and Aedan, who will save her again and again.
1. Chapter 1

**The Buried Life**

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, settings and lore in this work of fiction. They all belong to BioWare and may be found in the Dragon Age Universe.

Summary: Neria, Anders and Aedan Cousland understand what it is to have a purpose, and have someone they least expected hand it to them. Commander Cousland/non-Warden Neria/Anders, with a little Cousland/Morrigan

* * *

**Chapter I**

She calls the Tower her home, though she has betrayed it and none look upon her.

She calls the Tower her home, though ravaged and befouled by demons and dark magic.

She calls the Tower her home, when all she cares for within it is a blood mage waiting judgment.

She calls the Tower her home, only because she has nowhere else to go.

It takes a long time for them to clear away the vestiges of possession and death. Most of the mages are still not trusted, especially those who were not within Senior Enchantress Wynne's barrier when the first wave of demons flooded the halls. How were they to know they weren't abominations already? How can they be sure?

Even her fellow mages looked on her with fear.

Before, when word of Jowan's escape and her part In it spread through the Tower, they sneered and whispered behind her back. No one dared to talk to her or be within a certain distance. It was one thing to have templar guards all the time and another to have everyone else avoid her.

Now, they dared not sneer. They dared not even look.

But with so many templars dead, none could be spared to guard her. Not even Cullen, who yelled at the top of his lungs that she was lust and sin incarnate, would be allowed near her.

Besides Irving, she had been the only one left to survive the ordeal in the Harrowing Chamber, where the demon possessing Uldred sought to turn all of them into abominations. She had been late for the meeting, dawdling on the templar floor with Cullen who was trying to reassure her of his belief that she did not know Jowan was a blood mage.

She had felt it then, every nerve in her body crackling with magic as the Veil was ripped to shreds just above her.

Her blood had turned to ice and she ran as fast as she could up the steps to the Harrowing Chamber, where the doors flew open to reveal a nightmare inconceivable.

For days they were restrained, starved and exhausted. For days Uldred tried to turn them one by one. She looked into his eyes, searching for the mage she had known, but saw dead pools on a sneering face.

The demon urged her to let go, to embrace his gift, to be free of the disdain, hurt and betrayal of Jowan and her friends. He fed on her anger, plied her with dreams pleasant and horrible, bade despair to sing in her heart until she thought it would break her completely.

But she managed to resist him every time. Every time she just thought it was the Harrowing over and over again, and at the end the one she trusted the most would reveal itself the demon.

At one time, when the dream was of Jowan holding her in his arms, she almost gave in. But when he spoke to her like a lover, she froze in his arms and immolated him. The demon always made that mistake. Jowan and she were never lovers. He was Jowan and she was Neria, if he was anything to her, he was her only family. When the dream was of Jowan twisting her with blood magic, she prayed for death.

But no reprieve, through death or possession, would be hers. She would not relent to Uldred, nor would he let her die.

He told her he would enjoy seeing her bloom into an evil like no other.

It was hard to say how long she was in that chamber. Uldred had tried so many times with each of them. Tried as she might to distract him from turning Irving, sometimes at the expense of her own steadily slipping sanity, the First Enchanter was still subjected to his torture.

One thing she learned from the ordeal, however, that no matter his age, he was not First Enchanter for nothing. Moreso than dreams and visions, Uldred ended up using pain to force the old mage to relent.

But one by one, the other mages began to fall, either to their wounds or to Uldred's gift. Just as another one of them was replaced by a hulking, disfigured giant in mage robes, the doors had burst open, and Wynne was with them and she almost swooned from relief and regret and_ I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough…_

The next moments were still a blur, but she remembered Irving trying to stand, and a demon bursting out of Uldred's skin and the sounds of battle. At one point, the pull of her soul through the Veil was so strong, she swore she would rather swallow her tongue and die rather than be an abomination and aware at the same time.

But just as the pull had begun to truly take her, it vanished and her vision wavered. She was so tired, so hungry and spent, but she managed to crack an eye open. She saw a lithe, loping, graceful figure leap into the air and plunge two fierce-looking daggers into the demons head, and heard a howl of victory.

It was a beautiful thing to watch, a death blow with no magic, simply the grace and strength inherent to the human body.

When she had come to, she had looked up and seen a rather handsome young man's face. He smiled down at her, and she realized she was being carried in his arms. He told her to rest while they descended the tower. If she had the strength and the sense to be embarrassed, she would have jumped out of his arms, but seeing as she had neither, she hid behind her palms.

But she heard Cullen's voice from behind and was relieved. She had called out to him, perhaps he could help her to her feet instead. She had been so glad that he was alive. At one point during Uldred's torture she had come to realize that all that lay beneath them were dead mages and templars. Not long after that she almost prayed for the Right of annulment to fell them in its unerring path.

He had called her a demon. A corrupted, vile creature hidden beneath her face, poised to strike when they let their guard down. The last person who believed in her, and though their conversations were few and far between due to their roles in the Tower, knowing that someone still thought of her the same girl who just passed her Harrowing in record time, kept her together.

His words cut her worse than she ever thought. She was too tired to placate him, to reassure him that it was still really her, so the handsome man who still carried her just shook his head and brought her out of earshot and laid her on a soft place.

When she had closed her eyes to welcome a dream of her own making, it was Cullen's words that rang in her ears, and she felt despair sing in her heart again, yet Uldred lay dead atop the Tower.

* * *

Considering all things, Neria decided that darkspawn were almost as bad as demons and abominations, if only due to their immense numbers.

Just almost. The abominations were still worse because they could make her one of them.

But couldn't darkspawn do that as well? Neria then proposed the question to herself, "Which do you prefer to be, demon or darkspawn?" Many months later, when she had finally found herself again, she had decided that she would be an abomination any day.

Killing darkspawn was tedious, thirsty work. It did not take much to fell one, monstruous as they may be. Less than a single spell for each or a few well-placed strikes with her staff. But they just kept coming, in droves, that soon enough her veins thrummed with lyrium and she could hear her heart beat in her head.

But that all changed when she saw the dragon atop Fort Drakon. Irving had pulled her and directed her with him up the battlements, and she immediately recognized the figure darting beneath and between the dragon's legs, slicing maniacally with twin daggers.

She had never seen a dragon before, much less a corrupted one. She had seen illustrations in many books at the Tower, but nothing prepared her for the sheer monstrosity that the Archdemon was, and this was when she was always farthest away from it.

When it had almost landed on top of her, she felt a strong arm pull her back, and she looked up to see the same handsome and kind face of her rescuer at the Tower, albeit bloodier than she remembered.

She used the last of her lyrium to bathe him in a feeble healing spell and he turned back to nod his thanks.

The image of his perfect form impaling Uldred was banished from her mind as the moment of martial perfection when he climbed atop the Archdemon's head and sliced it open from snout to crown. Corruption filled the air, purple fire blasted this way and that, and yet she could not take her eyes off him.

It was beautiful and dreadful at the same time, and when he finally drove his blades straight through the dragon's skull, she thought he might have been a god.

Later, when the Templars arrived to "guide" the surviving mages back to the Tower, she searched for his impressive winged helmet among the wounded and those strong enough to stand. She wished to thank him, eve n if thanks from a single mage meant nothing compared to that of the nation, but she was truly grateful.

He had saved her a total of four times already, once in the Harrowing Chamber, once from Cullen's mad ravings, and twice from the Archdemon. She had come to consider him not only the Hero of Ferelden but a hero to her own heart as well.

* * *

Perhaps it was something she could tell her apprentice, if she ever had one, that she had met the Hero of Ferelden, he had carried her down the Tower and had pulled her from the Archdemon's grasp.

She thought being back in the Tower, returned to the tasks of cleansing and cleaning it from any signs of Uldred's revolt would calm her heart.

But it wasn't long before Cullen had gleefully told her that her blood mage lay in the bowels on the Tower, awaiting execution. His face, which used to be filled with compassion and kindness for her, now wore a sneer worthy of a demon. She felt her heart plummet.

Once again, the Tower became a prison that was her home. She pleaded with Irving to see Jowan, then when she was refused, she mustered the courage to ask Greagoir, who slammed his fist on the desk and did not bother to tell her to get out.

That night, as she lay in her quarters, still the only one left to occupy that section of the Tower, tears came. Unbidden and painful, she found she could do nothing but cry helplessly. As she drifted off to sleep, she could hear soft voices from the shadows, and visions of Jowan in the dungeons below plagued her. The voices, sometimes foreign, sometimes familiar came from everywhere, and she felt a cloying in her head. It felt like someone was trying to touch her brain.

She knew then, when the Veil seemed a lot thinner around her, wherever Uldred failed, her sorrow and despair would succeed.

She needed to leave. For her, the Tower had ceased to be her home. Now, the Veil was thin and the ingrained mage's resolve and mental resistance to demonic imploring eroded. She was so tired, and now, she had no one.

She could not be the teacher's pet, the perfect student, the model mage anymore. She was clouded in too much suspicion, her integrity compromised by blood magic and demonic possession that were not her own. Though the First Enchanter bore her no ill will, after all, he of all people knew how much she had resisted Uldred, his tone was apologetic when he refused her to see Jowan. Even Irving could not deny her involvement, even if he himself knew she was blameless.

First thing tomorrow, if she survived the night and woke up still herself, she would ask to leave. Anywhere, with anyone, even a whole contingent of templars (which she knew the Tower could not spare), she needed to go and find herself again.

Find a reason to keep being who she was.

Without this reason, she thought she would regret surviving Uldred's revolt.

* * *

Anders never thought that he would be able to see this day.

For the blond wise-cracking mage, he never thought he would see the day he could walk up to the Chantry and not be cuffed and rendered helpless by a templar.

Yet here he was, in one of the most smashing robes he ever owned (thank you, Commander) that screamed nothing but _hey look I'm a big bad mage…_

And nothing happened.

Usually, the templars didn't even have to see his robes to know he was a mage. He learned that his first attempt.

At times like these, he could not keep the ecstatic grin off his face.

There was a spring in his step as he followed the Warden Commander up the Chantry steps in Amaranthine, and was even more surprised to see some familiar faces standing idly by the statue of Andraste.

Senior Enchantress Wynne was discussing something with another mage, one who looked barely over a score and eight, which meant she had just passed her Harrowing. Rather tiny even for an elf, she had wide, impossibly blue eyes and the most shocking head of red hair, if not for the color, the general tangle of her tresses.

He knew her from some of his lectures, mostly as a tiny elven girl at the back of the class with her hand raised constantly in the air, always with the right answer, always with the perfect rendition of a spell.

_Ah yes, Neria, the insufferable know-it-all._

But in the next moment in his mind, he was glad to see them. Remembering his last escape attempt, he all thought he would be the last mage in Ferelden. He had not met any demons or abominations on his escape from the deteriorating Tower, but he practically felt the Fade at his fingertips, so thin was the Veil. He shuddered at the memory, thinking of all the mages and Templars caught in what he was sure was chaos above him.

But to tell the truth, Anders felt little sympathy for the other denizens of the Tower. True, he had become some sort of a legend within its walls, who wouldn't after several attempts, each one offering him more freedom than the last? He was sure it would have only been a matter of time until her found a way to evade them completely, phylactery in their hands or not.

And if things were as bad as he had thought, there might not be anyone left to find his phylactery anymore.

"Aedan!"

Anders turned surprised at the Commander, who had a smile on his face as well and stepped forward to give the older mage a hug. Neria stepped back and clasped her hands behind her back, a small smile playing on her face.

"It is so good to see you, my friend." The old mage held the Commander at arm's length and looked him up and down as a mother would do a long-lost son. The Commander's smile widened even more and he threw his head back to let out a very indulgent laugh.

"As is you, Wynne! Here I thought you would be with Shale in Tevinter by this time! How is she? The pigeons still find her unerringly?" Anders had never seen the Warden Commander so happy, but he found himself smiling as well, seeing a familiar face or two from the tower.

His eyes strayed to their other companions. Oghren had also joined in on the conversation with the old enchantress, smiling up at her in that vapid, lecherous way he always did. Wynne looked almost offended, well perhaps she did, but she was also happy to see the dwarf as well.

"So…er…this your…daughter or summat?" Oghren had turned to Neria who inclined her head and laughed a little, shaking her head.

"Oh! No, I'm not the Senior Enchantress' daughter, ser dwarf!" she shook her head. "and besides…I'm also an elf."

The tiny thing then proceeded to lift her hair and pointed to her delicate, pointed ears.

"Hmmm…Neria was it?" Commander Aedan stroked his chin, trying to remember something. She looked up at him, pink flushing her cheeks delightfully, and Anders found himself smiling again. "I remember you from Fort Drakon. You healed me."

"Oh…yes…it was..the least I could do," now she was fidgeting. Anders searched for the word for what she was doing, all stammers and blushes and avoiding eyes. "The Archdemon would have stepped on me if the good ser Warden hadn't pulled me away."

_Smitten. Great. Another one. And it had to be a cute mage too._

One thing he had yet to get used to when travelling with the commander was that female attention was not directed (or at least solely) at him anymore. More often than not, it was the lean, graceful form of the Commander in his impressively-cut leather armor that got the ladies glancing. In this case, however, the girl wasn't glancing so much as completely starstruck.

"Anders…isn't it?"

He piqued to see the older mage eyeing him warily, at which he grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head. He supposed it would come sooner or later, and he would have to answer to someone for his escape, someone who wasn't a Templar.

But now, rather than the rush to escape, the logical plotting of a method of freeing himself, he was overcome with guilt and shame. He nods solemnly, and stops himself from cracking a witty remark. The look she gives him tells him so much about what had transpired at the Tower and the way she looks to Neria and tries to find something in the younger mage's eyes…

Then the elven mage's expression softened, and a smile crinkled the crow's feet at Wynne's eyes.

"It is good to see you."

Anders stepped forward to speak to his former mentor, and he thought his heart could not feel lighter.

* * *

**end of Chapter 1**

**Thank you for reading.**

**Please review if you have anything to say! ^_^**


	2. Chapter 2

**The Buried Life**

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this work of fiction, most especially the characters, settings and lore. They all belong to BioWare and may be found in the Dragon Age unive_rse.

* * *

**Chapter II**

"Hey sparkle-fingers, how old is the elf?"

Oghren had asked him the question in such close proximity that Anders almost didn't hear him over the smell. It seemed to have stung his brain into a stupor.

"Old? You mean Neria? I honestly don't know." The mage replied, but the smell was so strong that he could taste it, and he coughed lightly. The question did intrigue him, and he glanced behind him to the solemn mage who had suddenly decided to become introspective all of a sudden.

"Yer sure she can handle herself with us? I mean…er..she old enough? She pass the hurr…tests up at the Tower right?" that Oghren had the sense to whisper to him was enough to surprise him. The breath wave again also did him in next.

Anders was sputtering and gagging as he replied.

"Yes, you festering pile of garbage! Augh, I swear if the darkspawn don't get me, your mouth will! Yes, Oghren she has passed her Harrowing!" he stumbled back and almost knocked into Neria, who by now looked up at them curiously.

"Something the matter, ser dwarf?" she asked, tilting her head to one side and eyeing him quizzically.

_All right, so perhaps when she did that she did look…fifteen…eighteen at most, but she's an elf! All elves are small and delicate and make astonishingly adorable faces…_Anders thought, finally being able to breathe clear air.

"Hurr. Just wanted to make sure yer…you wouldn't start wetting your drawers." The red-haired dwarf chuckled, but the light in his eyes was playful. "You can run to old Uncle Oghren if the darkspawnies scares ye."

Anders slammed his palm to his forehead.

"Oh…I, thank you..Uncle…I mean, ser Oghren. I'll..Keep that in mind." She gave a rare smile, but one that did not quite reach her cerulean eyes.

The blond mage began to shake his head. He certainly didn't foresee the chance that Neria would become part of their little group, if only until they found Senior Enchanter Ines. He had seen the reluctance in Neria's face to being separated from Wynne, almost akin to horror, and he wondered what might have really happened when he fled the Tower that night.

He heard a small scuffle from behind him, and he glanced back to see that the elven mage in question had tripped. Her face was hidden by her long red hair, but he thought he could hear soft sniffling.

Honestly, if she was going to be such a child about this, maybe they should have left her back in Amaranth—

Suddenly, she had a small dagger in her hand, and had raised it high. Fear suddenly gripped him and he was about to cast something to stop her when her hand came down on the side of her robes and sliced the seam at the side, from ankle to thigh.

Anders stood aghast as she proceeded to do the same with the seam on the other side. She then stood up and dusted herself off, and adjusted robes accordingly. With the gaping wide tears on each side, he saw she wore knee-high leather walking boots and stockings…and little else.

The blond mage gulped and watched her closely as she walked past him.

"Um…I think you ruined your robes.." he began, but she looked back at him and shrugged.

"It is hard to walk in, and I don't have a spare. I'd be tripping all over the Wending Wood." She explained, and indeed she did walk faster and didn't lag behind the group anymore. She stood behind Commander Aedan and Nathaniel, and had begun to chat up Oghren. For once, he did not hear Oghren be rude to a female in the first few minutes of acquaintance.

Anders let out a low whistle.

* * *

Having two mages in the party suited the Warden Commander very much. Aedan Cousland felt exhilarated as both Anders and Neria sped the blood in his veins and relaxed his muscles. They were making good time exploring the forest, and he felt Neria's abilities were helpful, if not rather perilous for her part.

When they encountered the large group of bandits, he was surprised and rather worried when he suddenly found the tiny red-haired elf appear alongside of him, tendrils of red mist swirling around her in a large radius. Slowly, he saw some of the bandits stagger and fall without her even casting a spell or being hit by anything.

Whatever she was doing, it was ending encounters much faster.

At first he was afraid for her and almost shouted for her to stay behind Anders, but the warning died in his mouth when he saw her duck and use her smaller body to knock an approaching bandit off balance.

_Huh. So she knows how to fight with her small frame._

Watching her, he saw she tended to crouch low, so low that she was almost as high as Oghren, and with the use of her tiny shoulders or a well-placed swing of her staff, knock down several opponents then proceed to freeze or immolate them.

After executing a rather satisfying slice, Aedan looked back to see the last of the hooligans stumble and fall from Neria's soft red ribbons of magic while she froze another one, Anders shooting with lightning.

"What is that?" he asked her as he approached her.

"Huh? Commander?" she looked up at him with blue eyes so disarming in their clarity he almost forgot the question he asked. He remembered carrying her down the Circle Tower, weighing nothing in his arms, and wondered how he could have missed seeing such extraordinary eyes.

_Rather gallant today, aren't' we?_

Morrigan's husky, perpetually-derisive tone snapped vilely in his head, and he remembered arguing with her the whole time he carried the injured elf past numerous flights of stairs and dead bodies. Then that insufferable Templar began shouting and he just wished the First Enchanter would do something about it.

"You're a battlemage?" Anders had come up as well, and he bent down, anchoring his palms on his knees, smiling goofily at the smaller mage.

"Um. Yes. Though I've never used it in an actual battle before. Don't get out of the Tower much," she smiled sheepishly then giggled behind her hand. "I only went out during the Blight."

"What's a battlemage?" Aedan asked. He had never heard of anything like that before. Aren't all mages built for battle? And dark rituals?

"Well, I'm sure everyone has seen my astounding abilities in the ways of putting back what has been hacked up, in terms of fleshy objects." Anders began, looking rather fondly at Neria. "Our little adorable battlemage here can do lots of nasty things to enemies around her without waving a finger. Am I right, my utterly deceiving mageling?"

"I haven't mastered it yet, though, I concentrate more on offensive magic. So far I can drain the ones around me and freeze them." Neria added.

"Don't all mages freeze things?" Aedan asked.

"Ah yes. Any mage can cast an ice spell; I can freeze Oghren's family jewels right now. But as any standard mage can freeze someone into feeling like they were put in an ice bath, Battlegoddess here would make you feel like you were dropped in The Frozen Seas. Her ice is deadly, mine isn't."

After Anders regaled everyone with Neria's abilities, the Commander found her blushing again, deepening when she the nickname Anders gave her. But the sad smile that followed made the former's brow wrinkle.

Aedan found himself nodding, a bit interested in the extent of her abilities. But this was not the time and place to discuss them. But he at least had to know a little of what she could do as a mage. After seeing her fight, he could easily conclude that she was a widely different mage than Anders.

Oghren came up to them to ruffle the elven mage's already-messy head of hair. She seemed to enjoy it.

He waved Nathaniel over.

"I saw one of the statues and some of the goods the Merchant's Guild had requested us to recover. I haven't seen any of the special bark that was commissioned, though." The black-haired rogue dusted himself off and adjusted his pack.

Aedan smiled a small smile. Looking at Nathaniel always gave him a mix of admiration and sadness, for their sundered families and his intense focus and efficiency. He thought of the Howe as his Alistair-in absence, only with better hair and more sense.

"All right, since we have such a helpful addition to our group, change of tactics." He looked at each of them pointedly. "Anders and Nathaniel, support from behind. Incapacitate the magic-user and I'll follow through. Oghren, you provide cover for battlegoddess, make sure she can do what she did again. No skimping on poultices and potions for anyone. When I call to press the attack, we move forward."

Two humans, a dwarf and a blushing elf nodded in assent.

"Now, I know Anders will enjoy this the most. Strip these boys naked then we move onward." He smirked, and proceeded to loot the bandit corpses, soft female laughter and male protests erupting behind him.

* * *

"Wake up, wake up, quickly!"

Neria heard the voice cut through the dense fog of unconsciousness, and her mind struggled to collect what had put her to sleep in the first place.

_Velanna, the dalish elf. Trying to calm her down._

_Scattered weapons._

_Nathaniel being sent back._

_Entering the mine, the strange, disfigured creature with long, graceful arms…_

At this she sat up, and felt something akin to an acid flask explode in her head, but before she could even complain, armored fingers grasped her arm and hauled her to her feet.

She finally opened her eyes all the way and saw another elf, in armor, her eyes misted and gray, cheeks sunken and sickly black. The shape of her face and her eyes were startlingly similar to Velanna's.

The pain in her head became a living thing, and her eyes fell closed, even the dim light around her assaulting her senses.

"Hurry, we have to get them out." She heard the elf say, and she was half-dragged somewhere.

She was unceremoniously dumped in front of a large, high door similar to the doors of the Tower.

A key was thrust into her hands. The elven woman grasped her shoulders and with surprising strength, set her on her feet. Gazing into milky eyes, Neria thought she was looking at a walking corpse.

"You must get out of the mine. The Architect is away for the moment but they will be checked on soon. Please, you must hurry, there is no time." The sick woman shook her hard, and she stood on wobbling knees.

Leaning on the door jamb for support, she outstretched her hand and sent a jolt of rejuvenating magic through her body.

"Wh..Who are you? The Architect? What are you saying?" Neria finally realized that her body still felt sluggish, even after she had just cast a small spell on herself to correct that. Worry for her companions was brought to the fore, however, and she looked hard at the key in her hand.

"There's no time to explain, please just trust me. They're in a cell inside, this will unlock it." The elf answered her exasperatedly, taking Neria's hand in her own. The mage felt the rough calluses and the bony joints, realizing this could truly be the hand of a corpse. The smell of her, though, was not one of rot or decay, but it was not pleasant either. She smelled of…old things, kept too long in storage, in a damp room.

"What are you? Why do you look like this?" Neria asked, her free hand coming up to part the hair from her eyes.

"I'm…My name is Seranni." The elf answered.

Neria's hand flew to her mouth. "You're Velanna's sister!"

Seranni's misted eyes widened, and purposely avoided Neria.

"Please, just get my sister and your companions out…Tell her..Tell her she shouldn't worry about me and just return to the clan." With this Seranni turned the key in the lock and walked away down an unlit corridor.

Neria looked into the darkness for a moment before she fought against the odd fatigue that seemed to weigh her down.

With all the strength her tiny body could muster, she pushed against the massive door with her shoulder.

It gave after a few tries, with an ominous creak that she was sure could be heard all the way to Amaranthine.

* * *

End of Chapter II

Once again, thank you for reading. Please review if you have anything to say about my work! ^_^


	3. Chapter 3

**The Buried Life**

_Disclaimer: characters, lore and settings belong to BioWare_

_Thank you to the wonderful Melismo for the beta!_

_

* * *

_

**Chapter 3**

_She's missing._

Anders felt the mana peter out from him as he cast another ice spell on the cell bars, and his efforts felt a bit more desperate each time.

His ice spell failed, just like all the other spells he tried before that.

_Where in the Maker's pants is she?_

He kicked at the bars, not minding the burst of pain at his toes as he did so, the heels of his palms coming up instead to rub at his eyes. One thing he noticed about himself when his magic was dwindling and he was weakening was the drying of his eyes and the elevation of his stress levels. He glanced around the cell and found that the Commander was still out and could not be woken. Oghren made as if to bang his head against the bars on the other side of the cell, but thought better of it, and tried to pry the metal away from each other instead.

The tall, blond mage echoed his growl of frustration when the bars would not give.

_Surana, if you're dead I swear I'll wring your pretty little neck.._

_Sodding Wynne. Sodding Ines. I didn't join the Wardens just to be locked up again!_

Behind him, Velanna stood imperiously, previously having tried her Keeper's magic as well, only to have her vines slither uselessly against the bars.

Whatever was keeping them there, it was more than just metal. Anders could sense _some_ magic, but sadly, did not have the skills to dispel anything more potent than a glamor. Velanna, he assumed, having given up, could not do anything about it either.

He had woken up in a shirt and breeches of all things, moldy-smelling and old, all his weapons and components gone. He saw Velanna, Oghren, and the Commander, still unconscious, but the one he ultimately searched for was nowhere in sight.

The tiny Surana was not in the cell with them, and the uncertainty and helplessness of their situation made him despair. It didn't make any sense that she wasn't with them. Velanna was with them, and she wasn't a Warden, so where was Neria?

He had already looked at the cells around them, they were empty, clean, not even the expected pile of prisoner bones or rags. At the corner of the prisons, there was an ornate door, and on the other side, another one, eerily glowing purple.

_Neria, where are you? Are you all right?_

_Are you alive?_

Anders banged his hands hard against the rails and slowly sank down to his knees. He remembered Wynne's words to him just before she had left Neria in their care back in Amaranthine. The old mage had previously talked with the elf, who was distraught and horribly embarrassed at being pawed off to the Commander.

Wynne did not seem to mind, and looked largely pleased with herself with the idea of leaving Surana with the Wardens. The Commander was smiling as well, a twinkle in his eye.

Then Wynne had pulled him and the Commander to the side, away from Oghren, Nathaniel and Neria who were discussing the statue of Andraste.

"_I know the trouble you get into, but please take care of her. She will be very helpful, but a little fragile. She's been through a lot at the Tower."_

_At this, she looked pointedly at Aedan._

"_Do you remember her from the Harrowing Chamber? She was the only mage other than Irving who survived without a shred of blood magic on her."_

_The Commander nodded solemnly, and Anders looked at him closely. So the Commander was at the Tower when the revolt happened? This he did not know. "She fought with us at Fort Drakon as well, she healed me just before I climbed onto the Archdemon."_

"_She did? She did not tell me. She must still be as fragile as she was then. I'm hoping a brief stay with the Wardens will help her somewhat. I've been at a loss for some months, having her tag along with me all over Thedas. I will consider it a favor if the two of you keep an eye on her."_

"_Of course, Wynne. She will be fine with us. And I will send her back if it gets too dangerous."_

_Wynne smiled wryly._

"_You can try. She is very much like you, at least the Aedan back then, before the Urn. Remember, this is the girl who ran towards the abominations, not away from them. She knows little care for herself. "_

Anders chuckled under his breath, trying his best to relieve some of the tension he had building up from their situation. He could clearly see in his head, the tiny elven mage, her hair wild about her as she summoned the largest spell she could as all the Templars and the abominations could do nothing.

He gave the bars another testing rattle, to no avail.

_Surana, wherever you are, please be safe._

* * *

Before Aedan Cousland had opened his eyes, he had been dreaming of a woman, her black hair, free in the wind, her skin covered in thick, wool blankets.

Her back was turned to him, and she stood on the edge of a precipice, high in what looked like a frozen line of mountains, perhaps the Frostbacks. He felt odd, unwilling to move or speak, only stare at the woman's back.

He heard her gasp. He found that he could take another step. And another.

He was so near her, he could smell her on the biting breeze.

He knew that smell. Wild. Pungent. Like forest flowers in damp moss.

The woman turned around, and he knew those cold, yellow eyes anywhere.

She shouted something at him, but no sound came. Instead, he saw something small squirm in her arms, and a cry rang in his ears.

His eyes flew open, and Morrigan's name fell from his lips, still easy but full of longing, for the first time after many, many months.

* * *

"Hey sparkle-fingers! The Commander's awake!"

Oghren's voice next to his head sent a staggering wave of whatever the dwarf had for lunch washing over Aedan. The Warden Commander rolled to the other side and coughed.

It seemed the dwarf had fish pudding.

"What is it Commander? Anders knelt beside Aedan, holding the latter's shoulder lightly as coughs choked Oghren's stench in his throat.

"Never, breathe on me…again, Oghren," Aedan sputtered and tried to stand. Anders and Oghren appeared on either side of him and helped him to his feet.

"Where are we, what happened?" Aedan asked. Once the air had begun to clear for him, he could feel darkspawn, lots and lots of them, growling beyond the walls and passages of their prison. His hand itched for his daggers, but they were not at his back, and he found that all his belongings were gone, armor replaced with a simple tunic and breeches.

Glancing around at his companions, he found them in the same situation. A sudden thought struck him, and he shuddered.

"Yeah, I did that too. To think the darkspawn knew how to put our arms through the sleeves! "Anders quipped, clearly trying to dispel the Commander's disgust. He was thankful for the effort.

"Have any of you figured out a way to get out of here?" he asked them, but they all shook their heads.

"I assume the bars have been enchanted." He reached out and tested them, using moderate strength to shake them. Not even a rattle. Most of them showed signs that they were frozen, perhaps the work of Velanna or Anders…

"Where's Neria?" he asked, his eyes frantically searching their cell and the nearby ones as well, but she could not be found. A chilling fear gripped him.

"We don't know. We all woke up in the cell just like you, Commander." Anders answered gravely, looking wistfully at the door at the far end of the prisons. For the first time, Aedan saw a muscle in Anders' jaw twitch, and a cord on the man's neck bulge in tension.

"What in the sod is going on?" Aedan became even more restless, running his hand through his messy auburn hair. "Does anybody know how long we've been out?"

Oghren put his hands to the stone, but shook his head and spat. "Even the sodding stone feels like darkspawn."

Aedan began to pace, his fingers worrying at his lips. Clearly they weren't imprisoned by humans, so some form of persuasion or trickery would not work. There was no fooling the darkspawn, but the fact that they were still alive made him pause. The darkspawn in the mines were clearly not the kind he usually encountered.

"We have to get out of here."

Just as the words left his mouth, a loud, ominous creak came from the door in the far corner. It was just a creak, a disturbing sound, but it had all their attentions.

"Is it darkspawn?" Anders asked the Commander, but with so many in the vicinity, he shook his head to mean that he could not say.

"Anders, Velanna," he warned, motioning for the mages to come forward against the bars, spells at the ready. Around them, leaves and vines began to grow, and the beginnings of the Veil were felt more keenly, Anders readying ice at his fingertips.

Another creak, more insistent, as if something was pushing hard against the door.

"The sodding ancestors—" Oghren swore, but a swift palm cut him off, Aedan glaring down at him in warning, a finger on the rogue's lips.

Velanna's vines crept slowly out of the cell, between the bars, making their way towards the doors which had began to budge, the rift in the center giving ominously.

"Either that's a really heavy door, or whatever's behind it is probably harmless." Anders whispered to the Commander as he extended his arm outside the bars as far as he could, aiming for a spot a few feet from where the doors would open.

They held their breaths.

This time, the hinges on the door gave a sickening lurch, almost opening all the way, then the sound of metal scraping against the hard stone floor rang through the prisons, and perhaps throughout the whole complex.

A small, slender form fell from between the rift of the doors, thick, red hair and torn, golden robes. Their missing elven companion lay on the floor, only her upper body visible to them, her face covered by her hair and her arms extended away from her, limp. Neria did not move.

"Neria!" yelled the Commander and Anders at once, and instead of a ball of disorienting magic, Anders let loose the strongest healing wave he could muster from a distance. She still did not move.

But the blond mage soon regretted the mana he spent on the spell when they heard a great shuffling and clanking of armor from afar, getting closer by the second, just as Velanna's vines began to finally reach the elven mage's prone form.

"Quickly!" the Commander hissed at the Dalish elf, who seemed extremely taxed at asking the vines to reach so far and for so heavy a burden as a body. But the tips of the green stalks curled slowly but gently around Neria's wrists and waist, and she was finally dragging towards the floor, still unmoving, but still getting closer to them, and Anders was feeling more relieved by the second.

"Can't yer vines be getting faster?" Oghren grasped the bars hard, his knuckles turning white, and Anders and Aedan wanted to ask Velanna the same question.

The Wardens' fears were realized when Neria's advance was halted by grunts and groans, along with a rotted hand grasping at her elbow and pulling her out of sight.

"I cannot pull her, their grasp is too strong!" Velanna said in a tired breath, sweat beading on her forehead as she tried to stretch the reach of her vines further and their pull harder.

"Neria!" Anders cried, but it was too late, her tiny form disappeared from view beyond the doors, even as Velanna collapsed and her vines dissolved uselessly into the stone. He fired an ice spell at the spot where Neria had just been in a fit of rage and frustration.

Aedan and Oghren shared twin looks of horror, knowing full well that what the darkspawn had just dragged her off to could very well be a life of monstrous breeding, which they would not wish on any woman, the image of Hespith and the broodmother Laryn coming to the fore of their memory.

Oghren howled his rage at the ceiling, his rages coming to life within him.

Anders battered the bars with ice and lightning and wild, uncontrolled magic, his spells running amok along the metal.

Aedan balanced on one leg and began kicking at the bars in earnest, ignoring the pain with each strike.

But nothing gave, nothing so much as bent, and it was Anders who grasped the bars again with bloodied and cold hands, shouting Neria's name at the top of his lungs

* * *

She knew she got the doors open, she had fallen forward, and the fatigue overcame her.

_Commander…the key…_

Darkness dimmed her vision just as she stole a glance at her companions in a cell far from the door, their faces turned in surprise and relief at seeing her. She wanted to call out but just the effort of pushing the doors open had left her too exhausted to move, to even open her eyes.

She could hear a slow shuffling of dust, and felt the warmth of a potent healing spell wash over her, which alleviated her fatigue, in slow, small increments.

She felt her fingers first, then her wrists, where something soft and alive had curled about, and the stone beneath her began to move, inch by inch.

But a rough force had caught her elbow, and she was pulled viciously in the other direction, the tugging at her wrists and what she could feel of her waist becoming feeble until it fell away all together. Her elbow fell to the ground, and the pain of it, brought her some form of consciousness, and she opened her eyes to see a Hurlock holding her by the ankle, dragging her along the rough stone floor.

It was as if the healing magic that Anders cast on her waited for that exact moment to deliver to her the full force of its potency, her mind and body awakening abruptly, and she began to struggle, kicking madly at the darkspawn holding her.

Just as she did, another Hurlock grasped her other ankle, and she looked around to see three others flanking her, and she took a deep breath to gauge her mana, which was just enough for a few spells.

With a cry of defiance to sharpen her focus, she slammed her palms hard on the ground and blasted a wave of deadly Battlemage ice around her, freezing all the darkspawn around her in an instant.

The hands grasping her ankles had become ice as well, though, but a conjured fist of solid rock sent the two darkspawn before her shattering into head-sized blocks of ice and flesh, finally freeing her to get up and run back to the prisons.

"Commander! I'm coming, I've got the…" just as she began to sprint back to the large ornate doors, the same sluggishness that hampered her earlier returned with a vengeance, sapping her energy just as suddenly as Anders' healing wave returned it to her.

But she fought, she staggered, almost on hands and knees and certainly with an uneven and swaying gait towards the door, which she had reached just as she heard more darkspawn coming up behind her. She didn't even look back, for she had just pushed past one of the doors to see the Wardens and Velanna waiting for her beyond the bars.

"Anders! Heal!" she managed a breathy, loud whisper as she stumbled, and she felt the spell hit her like a gust of wind, raising her up to stand firm again.

"Neria, behind you!" she heard Anders call, horror stricken on his face, and she felt an ice spell sail past her.

But the spell was either too weak or too late, because she felt something cold and very sharp slice through the flesh at her back, knocking her down on her hands and knees in front of the Wardens, whose shouts and cries grew more desperate.

But the wound was not followed by another as she expected, and she saw leaves and vines slide past and around her, Velanna beside Anders, her eyes closed and chanting.

"Have…to get you…out…"she said, in a voice hardly more than a whisper, and she looked up and her vision dimmed again, the sounds of their voices and the darkspawn approaching growing muted. She could not call out for another spell, and Anders was still recovering from the second one he cast on her.

She was so near, and she felt the key keenly in her pocket, and she struggled to stay awake. But she was still at least twenty feet away from them, and she couldn't seem to get up and put one foot in front of the other.

_No._

The word inside of her was a tiny thing, but it halted the edges of darkness in her vision for a moment, and gave her mind something to hold on to.

_No. Not yet._

She said it in her mind more forcefully, and even if she knew she could not stand, she looked into herself and reached for something deeper, something more familiar to her than standing or walking or even breathing.

She grasped at the bottom of her consciousness, at the bottom of her soul, even, for that last bit, or maybe even the just the top of her magic, the kind that came out when she was mad, the kind that made the demons flock to her in her fits of sorrow and rage, the Fade shimmering around her.

With a grimace and an exhausted cry, Neria Surana dug the magic out of her, her shoulder coming down hard on the stone floor. Her other arm was forced into a right angle at the elbow, still trying to keep her upper body propped up. From beneath her, she flung her fallen arm out and away, a last burst of telekinesis sending something small and rusted through the bars of the cell, over the Wardens' heads.

She heard the key hit the wall, then the Warden Commander's voice as he caught it in its bounce. The arm holding her up suddenly went limp, and though she heard more darkspawn coming and the door to the cell just rattling open, she didn't fight her disturbing, unending fatigue anymore.

Her back sang with pain, and she felt the tips of her fingers and the edges of her face creep with cold.

Neria was already unconscious when Anders knelt beside her and gathered up in his arms, magic pouring from his hands and emanating from his whole body, healing warmth washing over her delicate, unmoving form. He chanted her name, but she did not answer.

She did not hear the words he gritted into her forehead as his lips laid there in desperation, for without weapons or components, the fighting around them had become furious and he could not stay behind to figure out what was wrong with her.

She was set down gently against the wall, more words whispered into her ear, but none reached her.

* * *

_Thank you for reading! Please leave a review if you have something to say about my work!_


	4. Chapter 4

**The Buried Life**

_disclaimer: lore, settings and characters belong to BioWare_

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* * *

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**Chapter Four**

"I'll carry her." Anders said solemnly, the ancient elven incantations already beginning in his head. He bent down next to the unconscious elf, his body beginning to become luminous and finally, translucent. He finished the words he had learned from the book the Commander lent him. It still took a little time for him to put the enchantment into place, since he still preferred to use his spells to fight. But at times like this, enhancing his physical strength with magic proved very useful. He was glad he took the time to read the tome.

Beside him, Commander Aedan nodded, his eyes never leaving Neria's unmoving form.

There was a great urgency within the Commander, as if he wanted to punch through all the walls in this Maker-forsaken place, until he found daylight and the way back to the Keep, where Neria could be tended to much better.

But he knew he couldn't do that, no matter how much he wanted to. The mines (if they were still even in the mines) were crawling with darkspawn, and not the usual kind he encountered. He was the Warden Commander. Before himself, even before the lives of his companions, be they Wardens or not, he had to find out what was going on. His hand clenched into a fist, seeing how pale and weak the small elven girl looked next to Anders' lucent form, and he muttered a curse beneath his breath.

_Andraste's blood, what did they do to her?_

"The elfie's durned gonna be right eh?" Oghren asked, a lot less gruff than he usually was, and he felt the dwarf's eyes follow his movements like a child.

"She'd better. Or else I'm gonna kick her arse all the way to the Black City." The mage answered, and it was the first time Aedan had ever heard Anders' voice in that tone. Like there was something dangerous about him, and the Commander was quietly reminded how powerful a mage Anders really was.

He reached out his hand to smooth tangled, red hair from Neria's brow, and felt _something._

Something was wrong with her. The more he focused on her, the more he let his fingers feel her skin, he felt a strange cloying in him, as if there was something damp and sticky about Neria, like she had been dipped in a murky, rancid swamp.

But she was dry as a bone.

He shook off the disturbing feeling and instead looked around the prisons. In their cell, he noticed a short loop of rope lying in the corner and quickly went to fetch it. Anders, who had suddenly become quiet, understood what Aedan intended and knelt lower on the floor, his arms extended low behind him, as if to carry Neria slumped forward on his back.

Oghren immediately went to help, even if the berserker's height made it difficult, but he managed to position Neria to lean against Anders' back, and get her knees close enough for the enchanted mage to loop them behind and heft her up. She made no sound, not even a change in breathing pattern, and the three men looked at each other, worry gripping their hearts in a vise.

Aedan reached around and under Neria, working his hands and the rope around her form and Anders, until the unconscious girl was tied securely to the tall mage's glowing form. The commander tugged on the ropes to test the fastenings, and when he was satisfied that nothing short of a blade to the rope itself would let her slip or fall, he nodded to Anders, who stepped back and activated a number of shields for him and Neria.

He regarded the Dalish elf who watched them warily.

"I will not leave this place without my sister." She said simply, the expression on her face defiant. He nodded back.

"If you see a way out, you take it. You take her and run." He told the luminescent figure that was Anders, a peaceful-looking Neria hugging him from behind. "She's yours. Keep her safe."

Commander Aedan didn't know it, but he would utter those same words months later, to the same man, about the same girl, but for completely different reasons.

* * *

"So, that was escape number four, no wait, five, right? That almost worked completely, if only I hadn't fallen sodding drunk at port, and that blasted pirate hadn't tied my bootlaces together…" Anders' words were cut off when he launched a stone fist at a genlock that managed to get past Oghren and the Commander.

"The sixth one now, right, sleepy girl? Now, this was the piece de resistance of my life's work as an apostate, something that actually made me hit the library for once. Well, I did hit the library, but usually for something else…" The shimmering mage tilted his head down to see if there was any change in Neria's condition, but her face was the same as when he set her down gently against the prison wall, still asleep and peaceful, as if she wasn't strapped so tight to his back he could feel every dip and curve of her tiny body and darkspawn littered the floor around them. No, she did not stir, not even once, even when Ser Pounce had braved the outside of Anders' pocket to lick the elf's face. "Come to think of it, I vaguely remember asking you something that time. You were all snappy and vicious at me, if I recall."

The apostate heard Oghren's growl of rage, and aimed a potent healing spell at the dwarf, just as the latter began to swing a darkspawn axe over his head in a deadly circle, his height making the whirling blade deadly to hurlocks and shrieks that came near him. With surprising dexterity and concentration, Oghren began to walk forward, cutting down at least three hurlocks with a few rotations of the axe's blade. Using the momentum gained from his swinging, Oghren launched the crude axe at a hidden genlock emissary behind a crumbling cave wall. The notched blade shattered the crude head dress it wore and buried itself halfway through the darkspawn's head.

Without missing a beat, the dwarf looked down and wrested another crudely-fashioned darkspawn weapon, a humungous broadsword, from a hurlock corpse. With it, he felled a few more of the hurlocks trickling in from the passageways, a song to his Ancestors on his lips.

Commander Aedan, even with the imbalance presented by a longsword and a dagger, both darkspawn-made and unwieldy for his long fingers, plowed through the monsters just as fiercely, if not more precisely.

Prone to slashing arcs and sweeping blows, Aedan danced through the approaching throng of enemies, side-stepping each attack neatly at the last possible second then countering with a precise, deadly strike. Conserving his stamina, the Commander always went for the kill, severing heads more often than not, if only because it was all his found blades could do.

If only he had the Voice of Velvet and the Rose's Thorn with him, each darkspawn he faced would be literally cut in half by the torso.

But the weapons broke too easily, from both the strain of deathblows and the sheer velocity of the Commander's strikes, that half of a blade was caught in some fallen darkspawn corpse, and Aedan was forced to search for a replacement while dodging attacks.

His Warden senses sang in tune with the rhythm of his knife dances, even as an Ogre had appeared and made the companions step back, gauging it. Velanna sent bough after bough of thorns out from her in erratic, violent sweeps and strikes, most of her attacks running several darkspawn through, the monsters impaled like skewered meat.

"I can handle the hurlocks, get the Ogre!" she snapped, thorns erupting around her.

It was a testament to how long and how often the Commander and Oghren had fought together when with but a nod to each other did they launch themselves at the hulking giant. Oghren executed a perfect slide between the Ogre's legs, then stopping just behind the it, using the excess force to propel himself back, the filthy broadsword rending through darkspawn flesh. The tip slid right through from the Ogre's backside out its stomach.

Simultaneously, the Commander's running jump was a study in grace, his perfect form rising higher than the Ogre's twisting horns. Just as Oghren's sword plunged painfully through the Ogre, Aedan's feet were planted on the staggering monster's chest, the human's daggers poised high to strike. The Ogre's eyes widened and it let out a defiant roar, even as the dirty, unwieldy weapons came stabbing down on either side of the base of its neck. The wounds spurted blood on the Commander like black liquid geysers.

Behind them, away from the thick of the battle, Anders stood, all his defensive and healing auras giving him an otherworldly glow, the Fade shimmering around him with the sheer amount of mana he was using to sustain all his enchantments. He kept his eye on the Commander and Oghren, who, despite their incredible martial prowess, had their clothing in bloody tatters, revealing numerous lacerations.

He continued to tell the sleeping Neria about his escape attempts.

"So you know, Battledoll, I had to make this escape count because let's face it, sixth attempt and I still couldn't get it right? So I had to change things up, or else I'd be giving that horrid bitch Rylock another eyeful while she kicked me, and I decided to do a little research!" Anders continued his story while he froze the last of the straggling darkspawn as the Commander and Oghren caught their breaths.

"I found this lovely little formula in the more obscure volumes, I've forgotten the name already..but anyway, " he paused to bathe the other Wardens in healing warmth, watching most of their superficial wounds begin to mend. "After a little poking in the greenhouse and talking with Oswyn, I made myself a batch of sleeping draught, powerful enough to knock out a seven-foot log of stoic steel for enough time for me to go about my escape route."

"It was my most brilliant performance, if I say so myself, and I almost reached Orlais this time, but they still had my phylactery, so we both know where that ends."

Anders' hand came up to touch Neria's cheek, and he felt her low, sleepy breaths against his skin. Her face was lower in temperature than his own, and it unsettled him further. There was no change in her condition at all, and though she was certainly alive, that she would not, or could not wake was very troubling. If only there was time, and the proper components, he could find out what was really wrong with her and she'd be up and about in no time.

The mage cursed under his breath and continued with his tale.

Still, the elf strapped to his back lay as if in a deep sleep, and beneath all the bravado of his sixth escape attempt, Anders did something he thought he'd forgotten how to do.

He began to pray.

* * *

The Commander's mood darkened with each new passageway, taking a turn for the worst when the companions had come upon Warden Keenan, legs smashed into crooked angles, blood pooling slowly around him.

It was a difficult thing to watch, the paralyzed man's last breaths, but something had stirred in Anders at the sight of a fellow Warden dying from a darkspawn wound. He felt sympathy, no doubt, and a quiet anger towards darkspawn in general. But with Keenan's last words of making the world a better place, the mage felt as if the Taint in his blood resonated with Keenan's, a silent, subtle acknowledgement, an understanding borne of duty and brotherhood.

When Commander Aedan had cut down the Hurlock Dragon Tamer responsible for Keenan's useless legs and had taken its own weapon to its head, Anders did not look away.

However, when they had come upon the experimental subjects mentioned in his quick perusal of the notes they found in one of the furnished rooms, he felt a cold hand seize his heart and grip it like a vise. Seeing the rolling, twitching heads atop wasted necks, eyes misted gray and dead, the elf at his back began to feel heavier. His hand involuntarily came up behind him to caress Neria's neck through her curtain of hair, as if to reassure himself of something.

"When you healed her, did she seem like…" the Commander gestured to the experimental subject they just killed, a pale, dirty elven woman wearing Velanna's things. Anders sensed the trepidation in Aedan's voice. "Like them?"

Again, his hand came up to touch Neria's face asleep on his shoulder, and his fingertips felt for any corrosion of flesh, any sunken or diseased spots. He found none. Recalling the way she lay limp in his arms even after expending so much mana healing her, though, still troubled him immensely.

"No, Commander," Anders replied, but he could not meet the Commander's eyes, and the two men heard the unspoken truth between them.

_Not yet._

_

* * *

_

"Andraste's bleeding cunt. If we ever get out of this alive, Commander, I'm buying you a wench." The apostate said as he knelt beside Aedan's struggling form, the rogue trying to stand up despite a deep gash on the thigh, white bone peeking out from furrows of rent blood and muscle. Anders glanced behind him to the still-unconscious form of Neria, encased in a barrier of his casting. He had set her down so he could better help their party in facing the two drakes the strange darkspawn had summoned.

He glanced behind, and saw her slight, slumped form leaning against the corner, a pillar of light rushing up into the air above her. He counted down the seconds until he had to re-cast the barrier.

_Just a bit more, Battledoll, then I've got you._

In the middle of the large, ancient hall of the Tevinter ruins, Oghren hollered a song to his Ancestors, trying to keep the two drakes' attention on himself. Velanna, a glowing green glyph beneath her feet, began to chant, and a pillar of ice and lightning descended from the ceiling.

The red drakes, startled by Oghren's bellowing and the small storm that suddenly appeared between them, tumbled down from their circling flight to land in hard bounces on the cold floor. Cracks blossomed underneath them from the impact of their fall, and the Dalish elf stretched both hands apart from her, frost falling on the twisting beasts. The hall resounded with her elven cursing, her fury and spellcasting melding together in one long chant of rage, unintelligible in the roaring of the storm.

"Do me one better and buy _Nathaniel_ a wench." Aedan gritted out as Anders pressed a poultice down hard on the wound, even as his healing spell knitted the torn tissue. The Commander's hiss of pain was long and strained.

"Now that," the human mage said, casting a ward on the Commander just as he peeled the spent poultice away. "Is the best idea you've had all day."

"Let's get us some drake scales and I'm taking us all wenching." The Warden Commander stood on unsteady legs, daggers sliding out of their sheaths.

"Even Oghren?"

Just as Anders asked that question, one of the drakes let out a stream of intense flame at the same dwarf. Oghren, cleverer in the choosing of his equipment than he ever let on, was hardly singed. He hefted his enormous Darkspawn Ravager up in a vertical slice which parted the burst of fire aimed right at his face and cleaved the drake's face from its neck. The small dragon howled in pain, its jaw hanging open uselessly. The fire stopped completely and blood burst forth from its maw.

"Especially Oghren." answered Aedan, and ran to help Velanna, who had already been bitten by the drake on her shoulder, and was readying to escape the reach of its mouth. "For the Wardens!"

The human mage rushed forward as well, trusting the Commander to distract the drake from advancing on Velanna. He flung a small healing spell at the Dalish elf, whose wound was already closing by her own magics, but she had stumbled in her steps. She sat helpless on the stone flags, grimacing in pain. She turned to him, and she held out a slim, bleeding arm. As Anders took it, she gasped, but not in pain. Her eyes saw something horrifying past his shoulder.

"Sparkle-fingers! It's almost got her!" Oghren bellowed, and Anders dropped Velanna's arm and whirled around.

It looked like a deformed priest, the robes melded to its skin. A head dress grew out of its head, if it was not part of it, even. He could clearly see its spine, spindly and decayed, beneath bladelike bones. It looked almost fragile, naught but robes, bones and tatters of flesh, but its arms, and its hands…

The delicate-looking limbs opened as if to embrace Neria, and magic raised her from the floor into its arms. The claws flexed in a beckoning gesture, and Anders sprang into motion.

"Don't you touch her!" his shout echoed in the high-ceilinged chamber, the sound a desperate command. A telekinetic grip halted the elf's progress into the darkspawn's arms, just as Dumat's Spine whistled past his ear in a deadly trajectory.

The strange willowy darkspawn glanced their way for only a moment, dismissing the spinning dagger with a thought, and intensifying its pull on Neria. The elf was suspended in the air like a lifeless doll, her feet dangling inches from the ground.

"I will not exact retribution if you remand her to me." came its soft, gentle, disarming voice. It had a slight lisp, and a raspy quality. Anders thought it sounded like the voice of a young man from the throat of a grandfather.

"Let her go or I will snap you in half, darkspawn." Anders didn't even realize Commander Aedan had moved, but the Arl was already behind the decayed creature. Aedan had wedged the tip of the Rose's Thorn between two of the creature's exposed ribs, while his other hand held the thing's lower spine. "Now."

The darkspawn lowered its arms after a moment, the gesture not one of defeat, but of slow, practiced grace.

"She belongs to me now. Her body has been altered to suit the needs of my research. There is nothing you can do for her." it said, glancing back at them with a masked, mangled face.

"What have you done to her?" both of Anders' hands came forward, and Neria all but slammed into him with the force of his telekinesis. He held her tightly, her slight weight in his arms reassuring him somewhat.

"Talk, monster." Aedan ordered, but a sudden movement caught the rogue's eye, and the clanking of armor from above him made him step back in time. An axe had fallen where his arm had just been. Between him and the strange darkspawn was a dwarven woman wearing old, musty full plate, her face a tainted mask.

"Utha. That was unnecessary." the strange darkspawn turned to Anders, who still held a limp Neria in his arms. "I will ask again, Warden, in the proper way your race goes about asking. Please. Give me the elf. I need her."

Anders did not name it, and tried so hard not to acknowledge it, but when this creature had said that Neria had been 'altered', he held her tighter, and knew that something was terribly wrong with her. His healing magic began to leak out. It washed over Neria, sliding and slipping against her skin, and it felt as if he had his hands were all over her. And beneath her, like a snake in wait, was whatever this horrid thing had done to her.

"Oh sure. You're welcome to take her. If you can get past me." Anders' voice lowered, danger lacing the edges of his threat. One hand left Neria to hold out a palm with lightning, crackling menacingly in his hand.

The creature shook its head, bowing in defeat.

"She will die, unless I attend to her, Warden."

"I'd rather kill her myself. You've turned her into a broodmother, haven't you?" Aedan asked, and the lightning in Anders' hand gutted out. The mage looked long and hard into Neria's sleeping face, and he felt as if she was lost already.

_No. Not that. Not you._

The darkspawn did not answer, but simply raised its arms. This time, Anders released the lightning chain he held in check, but it passed through the translucent forms of the darkspawn and the Tainted dwarf. The Commander bled into a blur of motion to wound either of them, but it was too late. Their enemies appeared on the balcony, far and inaccessible to the Wardens.

"Where is my sister, monster?" Velanna, finally up on her feet, ran forward to shout her question.

Aedan held his arm out to stop the Dalish elf, and watched as a cascade of rocks obstructed the strange darkspawn and the dwarf from view.

The Warden Commander glanced around him, seeing the grim line of Velanna's lips, hearing the sound of Oghren's Darkspawn Ravager being wrenched out of a dragon's side, and finally, feeling the same worry and desperation as Anders. Aedan clenched his fist hard, feeling the leather bite into his palms, the image of a fully Tainted Neria seared into his brain.

Anders had already cast the quickening upon all of them, and was already halfway to the doors. Aedan saw the mage's head bend down, and he suspected that the man was whispering something to her. He held Neria in his arms, her head lolling lifelessly against his chest, red hair spilling out from his arm. She was so small, so young, so delicate, yet it was her who got them out of the cell just as the Taint overcame her…Aedan felt admiration replace the worry in his chest.

_It will not come to be. You survived Uldred, you'll survive this._

"Wardens, to the Keep now. We have a Joining to do."

* * *

_A/N: phew, now that was a broodmother to write. thank you for reading, please leave a review! I would love to hear about how you feel regarding my work, and where it is going. Having said that, i will go on to say that Neria will wake up next chapter, Anders will realize the extent of her effect on him, and Aedan's mind will be filled with thoughts of another mage. XD_


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